Alright guys, so in light of writing the FIS' history, the state of this ambiguous 'Caliphate' (Kyr's app reminded me), I'm going to propose a rather large (perhaps radical?) change to AMW Canon, regarding the history of this Caliphate within Persia (a huge constituent of the first few Caliphates). It would go to explain why a weakened Umayyad Caliphate chose to focus its efforts westward and into North Africa (a common theme of past and possibly future applications) and why Byzantium managed to reconquer it so successfully.
The FIS is predominantly Ibadi, a tolerant Islamic sect which rejected the last of the "right guided Caliphs", Ali, and thought of him as incompetent and unfit to rule over the Islamic Ammah. At the start of Ali's rule, the Rashidun Caliphate (the first) was divided by civil war between Sunnis and Shias after the assassination of Ali's predecessor (Uthman, also unpopular) by a Persian general, who, in my canon, went on to lead a full scale rebellion and restore Sassanid rule. The repercussions of that is that since about 700 AD, relatively young into Islam' existance but after the faith reached Central Asia, Egypt, India, etc., the Caliphate would lose Persia to a newly-converted Ibadi Sassanid dynasty which would go on to rule for another half-century. This would explain why most of the FIS are Ibadi, why Central Asia remained warring tribes (a feature in the FIS and Depkazi history) and were never under the Caliphate's hegemony, and why the 'Caliphate' was never strong enough to fight off a Greco-Roman resurgence.
As for Sunnis and Shiites, there should be no real difference to their religious views or history (the Caliphate still existed, just in a weakened form), except that many would probably consider Ibadi followers heathens or outright heretics (AMW's Ibadis do revere someone who assassinated a Caliph as a hero, after all). West Persia will still be a Shia heartland, a remainant of Islamic refugees which settled in the area following Byzantium's invasion of Mesopotamia, and later persecutions. Central Asia, the Hindu Kush and Northern India can (and in the FIS' case, do) remain Sunni as the first Caliphate did originally spread Islam to these areas, and Persia's tolerance of other faiths/sects (the restoration of Sassanid rule was more political than religious, anyways) led to the diffusion of Sunni religion eastwards. However it may explain why there was no later (post-14th century) attempt at a Caliphate akin to the Ottomans or Cordoba (as far as I know Chingiz hasn't styled himself Caliph yet) and generally why the traditional Sunni-Shiite faiths haven't been as widespread.
So, how about we hash this thing out once and for all, to clear up any future confusion?
Chemaki, did you really not know that Chingiz was a Caliph? Holy cow, son. The link to the Depkazi factbook is on the offsite forum, dude. You should read it some time. It's friggin' awesome
